How the Sounds of Africa Have Traveled

By

Jim Fusilli

Updated May 10, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

On her latest album, "Afrodiaspora" (Luaka Bop), Susana Baca delivers what is likely the sweetest and most appealing lesson in ethnomusicology we'll ever enjoy. Not only does the Afro-Peruvian singer perform music from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, the U.S. and Venezuela as well as her home country, she and her band mix the techniques of several countries into a single track: In "Que Bonito Tu Vestido," she sings to Mexican and Peruvian waltz-like rhythms before the musicians veer off to a son jarocho, a musical mode from Veracruz, Mexico, that's already a blend of African, Mexican and Spanish traditions.

ENLARGE

Susana Baca performing in Lima, Peru in 2006.
AFP/Getty Images

"I wanted to discover if styles from different countries fit together," Ms. Baca said through a translator by phone last week while on tour in Paris. She referred to her reading of "Hey Pocky Way," a Meters tune that's a New Orleans standard. Percussion instruments found in Peru's celebratory festejo music provide the underpinning as Ms. Baca sings accompanied by Wayne Wallace on trombone and Billy Branch on blues harmonica. "For me, there were so many surprises."

As its title suggests, the common link among all 11 songs on "Afrodiaspora" is how the music of Africa took hold throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere. The 67-year-old Ms. Baca has dedicated her career to celebrating Afro-Peruvian culture, not only across the span of her dozen albums, but through the founding, with her husband, sociologist Richard Pereira, of Instituto Negrocontinuo, a Cañete, Peru-based organization.

There is nothing dry and academic about the new disc. From "Detrás de la Puerta," the cumbia opener written by Colombia's Iván Benavides, the music burbles and sways with Ms. Baca's sensual voice and alluring presence as our guide. Though the song titles tell us what we're hearing—"Plena y Bomba," for example, rises from Puerto Rico's bomba and plena folk forms while "Coco y Forro" celebrates northeast Brazil's forró and coco rhythms—Ms. Baca and the band encourage us to move to the polyrhythms while we learn. With translations provided in the liner notes, we see that the lyrics have a tactile richness too: In "Reina de Africa," which blends flamenco, panalivio and tango, she sings: "The queen of Africa came and got everyone on the docks on their feet / Everyone stopped working, from the stevedores to the smugglers / The goddess of living ebony stopped the city cold." In "Plena y Bomba," she sings: "In my grandmother's alley, love tastes like cinnamon / In my grandmother's alley, everything is inspiration."

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Her family and childhood in an impoverished part of Chorrillos, a district of Lima, are the wells from which Ms. Baca's passions spring, she said. Her mother, aunts, uncles and their friends surrounded her with the folk music of Peru. "I became very involved in it. We also received the influence of Caribbean music, especially Cuba. A lot of Cuban musicians would come and perform in the movie theaters."

At age 20, Ms. Baca met Chabuca Granda, the Peruvian composer, poet and singer who, in the latter part of her career, embraced what was considered by some the low art of Afro-Peruvian folk music. "Chabuca Granda broadened my world," Ms. Baca recalled. "She constantly had me at meetings with writers, poets and artists." (Ms. Baca's U.S. breakthrough came in 1995 with a version of Granda's "Maria Lando" on the compilation "The Soul of Black Peru" assembled by David Byrne.) Though she had begun a career as a teacher, Ms. Baca was also singing professionally, integrating Afro-Peruvian folk into her sets. The audience resisted, but Ms. Baca wouldn't be dissuaded; soon she and her husband were visiting villages in search of traditional Afro-Peruvian songs.

"It was a process that started with my mother teaching me," she said. "It continued with Chabuca Granda. As I realized the importance of the knowledge I had, I realized it was my destiny to recover, document and promote my Peruvian heritage. It's part of a broader vision I have of the African influence in my music. It's a shared experience."

In Ms. Baca's music, we hear the majestic ebb and flow of cultural influences in popular music—Africans came to Peru in the slave trade and infused the country's music with new modes, rhythms and traditions. The same thing happened elsewhere in the hemisphere and soon the new styles were influencing each other. When asked if she seeks out new hybrids, Ms. Baca laughed. "What happens is the music comes to me. It captures me."

Ms. Baca said she and her band will tour the U.S. in August. "For me, it will be a celebration," she said. "A huge party with Latin and African roots."

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter: @wsjrock.

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